At that exact moment, I did not even think about my surroundings, or what was happening. My system felt shocked. I slowly open my eyes and see Naomi laying in my arms with three large, dark red shards sticking out of her; one in her shoulder, the other two in her side and stomach. I sat there, looking at her, still shocked. It felt like that until someone grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me back into it.

"Hey, you need to focus. That thing is damaged, but it's still up. We need every able hand possible to kill this piece of shit!" Sixer says still shaking my shoulder.

"Right, you're right. Cover me for a second." I pick up Naomi and gently sit her up against the wall, making sure she was out of the line of fire, before I pick my 417 back up and look back out the window that was now surrounded by red shards. The creature is now on one knee. One of its arms is completely torn off.

"Shit, that explosion created a lot of smoke! It's hard to see!" 

"We can use this to our advantage. Let go, follow me." I say then look to Yuri, who was also in the room.

"Stay here and watch her. If nything more happens to her, you're dead." I say as Sixer and I both head down the stairs and out the door, into the thick ash. At this point, I can't even see the giant beast. I tap Sixer on the shoulder and point to a good piece of cover with a great line of fire at the creature. He nods and runs over, getting into his position. I get beside him.

"What are we supposed to do now?!" he says, panicked.

"Calm down, I'm working on it." I say as I pick up a metal pipe from a nearby pile ruble, and begin slamming it onto scrap metal, creating a loud clacking noise. After a few second of this, I hear a deep growl nearby and immediately drop it, then get back into cover.

"Now don't say a damn words, and don't move either." He gave me another nod of approval as we both could hear, and feel something above us. I slowly look up, and the beast is right over us. It isn't looking down, it doesn't even see us. I gently put down my 417, then quickly grab straight onto the large crystal in its chest.  I immediately use that odd power, and fire a shard of my own right into its chest. Once I felt the shard connect, I head a loud bang, and was thrown straight back against a wall. Everything started to get very blurry, then went to black as I could see Sixer run over to me. 

I slowly open my eyes and look around the white room. It was an operating room. The room was completely empty, and I was on the operating table with a white sheet up to my chest. This all seemed very familiar, almost like deja vu. I wait there patiently for someone to tell me what's going on.

After a couple of minutes, I hear a voice over the speaker. One that's not very familiar but I've heard it somewhere before.

"Now you've been out for quite a while, and I'm sure you're the type to handle this without any special treatment."  It says.

"What are you talking abou? Handle what?" I ask while looking around the room more, noticing a small glass window. From the looks of it, it's probably one-sided.  

"Lift up your left arm for us." I take in a deep breath and lift it up to reveal the metal arm that comes all the way up over my shoulder.

"I've sure done it to myself this time, huh?" I say as I twist my hand and move it around.

"You seem un-naturally comfortable about this, you do know your entire arm is gone, right? You lost it in the explosion that took down that creature that allowed us to retrieve the artifact." the person said in an odd tone.

"Yea, I figured" I say as I hop out of the bed and head towards the door.